acrappywebsite.com

Imagine, if after John Lennon's death, Paul, George, and Ringo had decided to replace him with some scrub with an afro and continue playing shows and recording songs as The Beatles. Then imagine, if after Kurt Cobain's death, Krist and Dave had hired what looks like Lenny Kravitz's less cool, slightly retarded cousin and continued on using the name Nirvana. Now imagine that Layne Staley died, and the rest of Alice in Chains met some chucklehead Jimi Hendrix wannabe who wasn't worthy of holding Layne's crack pipe, hired him, and reformed Alice in Chains with said chucklehead as the replacement to the legendary Layne Staley. Oh wait, that last one actually happened.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting, by any means, that the death of Layne Staley means that the rest of Alice in Chains should have hung up their guitars and called it a career. They absolutely should continue making music if that's what they want to do with their lives. And if they want to make music with William DuVall, the aforementioned chucklehead, they should absolutely do that as well.

BUT, what I am suggesting is that said musical endeavor is NOT Alice in Chains, and that using the name Alice in Chains is a lie and a shameless marketing ploy to all the fans of the real Alice in Chains, the band that, sadly, died along with Layne Staley. You can't just replace an irreplaceable part of a group and move on like it's the same as the original. You're not fooling anyone, and history and the Wal-Mart $3 CD bins are full of efforts by bands who thought they could replace irreplaceable members without the fans noticing.

And for the proof of my stated opinion, read on. I hope you paid attention in Geometry class, because proofs are about to come back to haunt you. Remember, for a mathematical proof, you start with an "equals statement" that you are trying to disprove, then do the same thing to both sides of the equation until you have shown that both sides of the equation are not equal. Here goes:

MATHEMATICAL PROOF THAT ALICE IN CHAINS MUST CHANGE THEIR NAME

Okay, for this exercise, we will be disproving the assertion that the current version of Alice in Chains is the same as the Layne Staley version. We will use the band's lineup circa 1993-94, which was the height of their popularity following the release of "Dirt."

Alice in Chains circa 1993 = Present-Day Alice in Chains

Now, breaking each side of the equation down into its' components we get:

Alice in Chains circa 1993 = Jerry Cantrell + Sean Kinney + Mike Inez + Layne Staley

and

Present-Day Alice in Chains = Jerry Cantrell + Sean Kinney + Mike Inez + William DuVall

Therefore with simple substitution we get:

Jerry Cantrell + Sean Kinney + Mike Inez + Layne Staley = Jerry Cantrell + Sean Kinney + Mike Inez + William DuVall

Now, subtracting Jerry Cantrell from both sides of the equation we are left with:

Sean Kinney + Mike Inez + Layne Staley = Sean Kinney + Mike Inez + William DuVall

If we similarly subtract Sean Kinney and Mike Inez from both sides of the equation we are left with:

Layne Staley = William DuVall

Now we break down both of these factors into their respective components:

Layne Staley = Legendary rock vocalist + One of the most unique, identifiable, and influential rock vocalists of all time + Accomplished songwriter

and

William DuVall = Scrub who thinks he's Jimi Hendrix + Dude with an annoying 'fro - Musical uniqueness or accomplishment

Using substitution for the two remaining components of our equation we are left with:

Legendary rock vocalist + One of the most unique, identifiable, and influential vocalists of all time + Accomplished songwriter